Conference paper

Vojtěchovský, Jan:

Sgraffitos of the Litomyšl Castle - Present State and Future Plans

Since 2011 there has been a systematic survey and monitoring of the sgraffito decoration of the Litomyšl Castle, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. The sgraffito dates to 1568–1581 and was subsequently influenced by two repairs after the fires in 1635 and 1775. The sgraffito of the adjacent Castle Brewery was created around 1630. Some of the sgraffito decoration was never covered, while other parts were. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, there has been a great number of partial uncovering and interventions on the castle and brewery sgraffito decoration. The present state of the sgraffiti was greatly influenced by their overall uncovering and subsequent extensive reconstruction, which took place between 1974 and 1987 under the direction of the famous Czech sculptor Olbram Zoubek. The expert discussions, which have taken place in recent years, resulted in the decision that the above mentioned reconstruction phase should be respected within newly planned interventions, considering the fact that the authors of the reconstruction are famous Czech artists of the second half of the twentieth century.
Recently, almost all the facades have undergone interventions to secure them locally. The sgraffito of the entrance tower on the Castle Brewery was fully conserved and a model treatment was performed on the northern castle tower in 2014. At present, a project of a new adaptation of the castle is being prepared, in which a complex restoration and building interventions on the facades are supposed to take place. This can significantly affect and irreversibly change the current appearance of the facades. This raises the question whether nowadays such an intervention is still acceptable and whether there should be a wider discussion on the national and international level.

Jan Vojtěchovský studied wall painting and easel painting conservation in Litomyšl and Bratislava between 1997 and 2005. At present he is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague. His dissertation deals with the use of nanolime suspensions for the conservation of wall paintings and architectural surfaces. Since 2007 he has been teaching in the Faculty of Restoration at the University of Pardubice, located in Litomyšl. In 2012 he became a head of the studio of Conservation of Wall Paintings and Sgraffito at the same faculty.